A Wi-Fi technology is a short-range wireless communications technology. A common structure of the Wi-Fi technology includes an access point (Access Point, AP) and a plurality of stations (Station, STA). The AP periodically sends a beacon (beacon) frame to announce existence of a network to the outside world. The STA proactively sends a probe request (probe request) and receives a probe response (probe response), or passively receives a beacon, to know existence of the AP, and then exchanges a message with the AP to join the network of the AP. The network formed by the AP and the STAs is referred to as a basic service set (basic service set, BSS). The BSS includes an AP device and a STA device that establishes a connection to the AP.
When a distance between a transmit end device (such as the AP) and a receive end device (such as the STA) is relatively long (exceeding a communication transmission range that can be reached by a legacy message), the transmit end device and the receive end device need to perform long-range (long range, LR) communication. To enable a device to perform LR transmission, a bandwidth used when the device sends a message usually needs to be reduced. In other words, narrowband transmission is used. In an LR transmission mode, a series of narrowband messages need to be exchanged between narrowband devices that perform LR transmission. However, the LR transmission uses a mainstream frequency band such as a 2.4 G frequency band, message transmission of other devices (such as legacy devices, where existing 802.11b, a, g, n, ac devices basically use a bandwidth being a multiple of 20 M (such as 20 M, 40 M, 80 M, or 160 M) as a unit, and these devices send a message on a 20 M bandwidth, and the device that sends the message on the 20 M bandwidth may be referred to as legacy devices) on the frequency band causes interference to the narrowband devices. In addition, when the legacy devices perform broadband transmission, because the legacy devices also use the mainstream frequency band (which is the same as the frequency band used by the narrowband device), a broadband device receives interference from message transmission of the narrowband device.
Therefore, how to maintain stability of LR transmission performed by the narrowband device and how to maintain stability of broadband transmission performed by the broadband device are technical problems to be urgently resolved in the art.